Cuts? WHAT cuts? Ignore the BBC and the Left, public spending is HIGHER than under Labour.

By
Stephen Glover

Another week and another slew of
hair-raising stories about the devastating effects of draconian cuts.
The Government is reported to be considering a further round of
reductions in welfare payments. The elderly and disabled are said to
face savage cutbacks in their support.

Everywhere
the story is the same. The extreme severity of the Coalition’s supposed
cuts is accepted as universally and uncritically as are the laws of
gravity. Most of the media and almost all politicians regard them as a
fact of life.

The
Labour leader Ed Miliband claims that ‘cutting too fast and too far’ is
responsible for the ‘double-dip’ recession while a permanently angry Ed
Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, talks of ‘a recession made in Downing
Street’.

Hair-raising: the rhetoric of the Left suggests the Government has made savage cuts to public spending

Day after day the BBC
produces supposed examples of the damaging effects of cuts — never
described as ‘savings’ — and in the Left-wing press, columnists such as
The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee regularly blow gaskets and fulminate as
they denigrate the Tory-led Coalition for destroying Britain’s public
services.

And it’s not
just Labour politicians, the BBC and the Left-wing press that tell us
the Government is bleeding the country to death. The Coalition itself
insists that public expenditure is falling. Ministers inform us that we
must accept this painful medicine because of the crippling debts left by
Labour. We have no choice but to endure the inescapable horrors of
deficit reduction.

Academics
tell the same story. Paul Krugman, a winner of the Nobel Prize in
Economics, recently agonised about the allegedly dire effects of the
British Government’s decision to ‘slash expenditure’. David
Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy
Committee, pops up all over the place with his apocalyptic warnings.

If
we were to ask a hundred people in any High Street, 99 or them would
say there have been significant cuts. How could it be otherwise when the
whole world is telling them so? Some might say the cuts are painful,
but necessary. Others would opine they are painful and destructive.
Either way, there is virtual unanimity that the Government is slashing
public expenditure.

The
trouble is that it isn’t. Earlier this week, the City bond trading firm
Tullett Prebon produced a report that confirmed what some of us have
been saying for months. To all intents and purposes, there hasn’t been
any overall cut in public expenditure in the two years since the
Coalition came to power.

Spending
rose 0.3 per cent in the first year and fell by 1.5 per cent in the
second. That makes a tiny overall decrease of just more than 1 per cent
over two years. To put it another way, the supposedly ‘savage cuts’
delivered by the Government amount to only fractionally more than £1 in
every £100. Most household budgets have suffered far more dramatic
cutbacks.

Meanwhile,
our national debt — what we owe as a nation — continues to soar.
According to International Monetary Fund projections, it will increase
faster over the next two years than any other leading European country
apart from Spain. Proportionate to the size of our economy, our debt is
one of the two or three highest in the developed world. When the
Coalition took over, it stood at a stonking £1,002 billion. By the time
of the next election, it will have risen to an unbelievable £1,613
billion.

Using figures
produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Tullett Prebon
report shows that Government expenditure in 2011-12 was still £22.6
billion, or 3.4 per cent, higher than it was in 2008-09 after nearly a
decade of bingeing by the Labour government.

That’s how far we have got!

And
while it is true that the deficit has been reduced — from £140 billion
in the first year of the Coalition to £120 billion in the second — this
has been achieved almost entirely as a result of higher taxes rather
than cuts.

Many people may find these
figures impossible to believe, but they are a matter of fact. Fourteen
months ago, I wrote an essay in these pages referring to a brilliant
pamphlet written by the economist Dr Tim Morgan for the Centre for
Policy Studies. He had pointed out that after nearly a year the
Coalition had not made any inroads into the vast mountain of public
expenditure bequeathed by Labour.

But
now almost exactly two years have passed since the Coalition assumed
power and, incredibly, the picture has barely changed. The same Dr
Morgan is the author of this week’s Tullett Prebon report. He describes
‘the tale of big cuts in public spending’ as ‘a bare-faced deception’.

The
facts support his thesis. Office for Budget Responsibility figures show
how much public expenditure is predicted to rise in cash terms — i.e.
taking inflation into account — over the life of this Parliament. In
2010-11, it stood at £696 billion. It is projected to be £744 billion in
2015-16.

Dr
Morgan calculates that in the remaining three years of the Parliament,
public spending is projected to fall by only a further 2.4 per cent in
real terms — i.e. discounting inflation. There are good reasons for
doubting whether the Government will achieve even this very modest
reduction.

How can this
be? How can the whole world believe that there have been swingeing cuts
when, at most, there will be a relatively gentle overall reduction that
has only just begun? It is as though we are caught up, like some
misguided cult, in a collective fantasy.

The
reality is that, though there have so far been only trivial overall
cuts, there have been significant savings in some departments. To put it
another way, while there are some areas in which government spending is
rising, there are others in which it is falling. In fact, the Coalition
is borrowing almost as much over five years as Labour did over 13.
Expenditure on the NHS — about 18 per cent of total government spending —
will increase slightly in real terms, though you wouldn’t know it if
you believed what Labour says. The smaller international aid budget is
projected to climb by a third in real terms over the life of this
Parliament.

Meanwhile,
there are rising interest charges on the ever-growing national debt.
Despite planned reforms, pension costs are expected to go up by 12 per
cent in real terms in the five years to 2015, while the costs of
unemployment benefit seem likely to increase by more than the
Government’s optimistic projections.

The
Coalition is also anxious to protect other significant areas of
expenditure, for example education, which will suffer only a relatively
small cut over the life of this Parliament, increasing in cash terms
from £89 billion to a projected £93 billion in 2015.

The
upshot of all this is that the effects of a relatively trivial overall
cut are being felt in a comparatively small number of departments such
as Welfare and the Home Office, where the police budget is being sharply
reduced. In other words, so many areas of government spending are
protected or sacrosanct that the cuts fall on a limited segment of
public expenditure.

Our
Armed Forces have visibly suffered, with some men and women serving
Queen and country in Afghanistan being given their P45s in the most
shaming way almost as soon as they set foot on British soil. Squadrons
of aircraft have been scrapped, and for several years, Britain won’t
have a single aircraft carrier.

All
of us will have noticed some effects of ‘cutbacks’ or ‘savings’. Tens
of thousands of jobs in the public sector have already gone, though
often through natural wastage. Local libraries have been needlessly and
stupidly closed. Councils are even more reluctant than usual to repair
the potholes in our roads.

But
evidence of particular cuts, and of individual hardship, do not amount
to proof that overall expenditure has been savagely reduced. It hasn’t
been.

The reason so many people
readily believe the ‘cuts lie’ is almost certainly because there has
been an unprecedentedly tight squeeze on living standards as a result of
higher taxes and falling or stagnating incomes, and rising inflation.
Labour politicians have planted the idea that this unhappy state of
affairs has been caused by slashing spending. On BBC1’s Question Time on
Thursday, the former Labour Cabinet Minister Peter Hain complained of
‘relentless cuts’.

The
Coalition talks up the supposed cuts for different reasons. It needs
tens of billions of pounds to cover its enormous levels of borrowing. Dr
Morgan plausibly suggests in his report that ‘the Government seems to
believe it can con the bond markets using the smoke and mirrors of
largely illusory austerity’.

The
all-powerful BBC has contributed mightily to the general perception
that there have been savage cuts. When did any of us hear a BBC
presenter or economist say there have hardly been any overall cuts in
public spending, or that the minor ones already planned will be mild in
comparison to the much sharper austerity programmes being visited on
Italy, Ireland, Spain and Greece?

By
contrast, we hear almost daily about the allegedly awful effect of
particular cuts, and are never told the whole truth, which is that very
few inroads have yet been made into the enormous maw of public
spending.

All of which
begs the question: what would happen if the Coalition were forced to
introduce substantial reductions in public spending? That, I believe,
would be a truly disturbing scenario. For consider this. The lion’s
share of the deficit reduction over the next few years is predicated not
on cuts, but on higher tax receipts. These assume high levels of
economic growth that many economists think are impossible.

Despite
having often got their forecasts badly wrong before, George Osborne and
the Office for Budget Responsibility are suggesting the economy will
grow by a scarcely believable 0.8 per cent this year, 2 per cent next,
2.7 per cent in 2014 and 3 per cent in 2015.

Expectation: George Osborne postponed the cuts anticipating growth

These
staggering figures are much more bullish than the OBR’s forecast for
eurozone countries, and it is not at all clear why it and the Chancellor
think we will do so much better. Lesser growth, or no growth at all,
and unemployment (together with welfare benefits) will rise and tax
receipts fall — and the deficit won’t come down. And our burgeoning
national debt will increase still faster.

In
that event, with an election looming, George Osborne will rue the fact
that, in what may turn out to be a fatal miscalculation, he did not
introduce significant cuts to public spending back in 2010, combined
with tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy. This is the appalling
irony of the Government’s position, with electors believing the country
is suffering swingeing cuts. It is being bitterly criticised for doing
something it has not done, and is enduring an enormous amount of pain
for no obvious gain.

If
growth does not happen, the Chancellor will have no choice but to
introduce the kind of severe expenditure cuts he is wrongly accused of
having already applied.

The
eurozone crisis is threatening to drag us down. Despite David Cameron’s
lecture on Thursday, we can’t do anything about the self-inflicted
economic problems of Europe. This weekend’s discussions among G8 leaders
in America are almost certainly irrelevant to our fortunes.

Mr
Cameron had better concentrate on what the Government can do. It is
still not too late for it to find new targeted public expenditure cuts —
Britain’s bloated quangos and huge international aid bill are prime
candidates — while giving our lacklustre economy a kick-start by cutting
business taxes now.

He
and George Osborne must grab complacent senior civil servants by the
scruff of their necks and rid them of all the disastrous assumptions of
the Gordon Brown years that still hold sway at the Treasury.

Doing
nothing will almost certainly mean no growth — and then we will end up
with public expenditure cuts dwarfing anything we have yet experienced.
Imagine the uproar if the Government is forced to slash spending in the
way it is being cut in Greece and Spain. The BBC, Labour Party, the
Left-wing press and distinguished economists would go into orbit. The
Coalition could not survive. The social disruption would be worse than
it was in the Thirties.

We
are a country that has worked itself into a highly nervous state over
phantom cuts that have barely happened. Fasten your seat-belts and start
praying if the axe really begins to fall.

How can "draconian spending cuts" that have yet to take place be responsible for Britain's double dip recession, but the tax rises -- like those advocated by Barack Obama and François Hollande -- that have been in effect not be responsible at all?

Waitin', watchin' the clock, it's four o'clock, it's got to stop
Tell him, take no more, she practices her speech
As he opens the door, she rolls over...
Pretends to sleep as he looks her over

She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man...
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man...
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Ohh...

Talkin' to herself, there's no one else who needs to know...
She tells herself, oh...
Memories back when she was bold and strong
And waiting for the world to come along...
Swears she knew it, now she swears he's gone

She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man...
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man...
She lies and says she still loves him, can't find a better man...
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man...
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man

She loved him, yeah... she don't want to leave this way
She feeds him, yeah... that's why she'll be back again

Music to read by:

Levon wears his war wound like a crown
He calls his child Jesus
'Cause he likes the name
And he sends him to the finest school in town

Levon, Levon likes his money
He makes a lot they say
Spend his days counting
In a garage by the motorway

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun
Alvin Tostig has a son today

By James Pethokoukis

Now, we all all know “austerity” from deep spending cuts (not the tax hikes, of course) is killing Europe’s economy and would do the same here in America, right?

Well, here’s a story about austerity that critics such as President
Obama, Paul Krugman, and Ezra Klein never seem to mention: From 1944 to
1948, Uncle Sam cut spending by a whopping 75% as World War II came to
end. Spending as a share of GDP plunged to 9% in 1948 from 44% in 1944.

Superstar economist and devout Keynesian Paul Samuelson—later to
become the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics—predicted
such shock austerity would cause “the greatest period of unemployment
and industrial dislocation which any economy has ever faced.” That dire,
disastrous prediction was widely held by his fellow Keynesians, with
one even predicting an “epidemic of violence.”

Except the doomsayers were wrong, even though Washington obviously
ignored Samuelson’s call for gradual spending reductions. Despite cuts
which dwarfed those seen in the EU today—not to mention those
Republicans are calling for here at home—the U.S. economy thrived. There
was no mass unemployment despite rapid demobilization of the armed
forces. As George Mason University economist David Henderson explains is
his 2010 paper, “The U.S. Postwar Miracle” (which this entire post draws upon):

As demobilization proceeded rapidly, employers in the
private sector, full of the optimism … scooped up millions of the
soldiers, sailors, and others who had been displaced from the armed
forces and from military industries. … The number of unemployed people
did increase, rising from 0.8 million to 2.3 million, but with a
civilian labor force of 60.1 million, the 2.3 million unemployed
people implied an unemployment rate of only 3.8 percent. As President
Truman said, “This is probably close to the minimum unavoidable in a
free economy of great mobility such as ours.

Of course, liberals are quick to point out the U.S. economy suffered
its worst one-year downturn in history in 1946, a drop of 12%. To many
Americans, it surely must have seemed like Samuelson was right, that the
Great Depression had returned. But no one thought that back then,
especially with jobs plentiful unlike during the 1930s. The drop in
output was a statistical quirk caused by the removal of price controls.
As Henderson explains:

For example, imagine that the free-market price of a
pound of filet mignon during the war would have been $1.40 a pound. But
imagine further that the government had set the price at $1.00 a pound.
Then, when the price control was removed, the price would have shot to
$1.40 a pound. Inflation statistics would have recorded some amount of
inflation due to this large price increase. But those statistics would
have overstated the real price increase because getting beef at $1.40 a
pound is better for many of the people who couldn’t, because of the
shortage, get it at $1.00 a pound.

Second, those sky-high output figures during the war
measured government spending on goods and services, lots of it military
hardware, at their cost. But what was all that stuff really worth, in
purely economic terms, vs. post-war consumer purchases of homes and cars
and nylon stockings? While total output fell by 12% in 1946,
private-sector GDP rose by nearly 30%.

Or look at it this this way: Real U.S. output in 1947 was 17% higher
than in 1941 despite the decline in government spending. Why was the
economy prospering in way it never did during the Great Depression?
Taxes were cut a little, and government interference—including price and
production controls and rationing—was reduced a lot. But perhaps just
as important, Truman dumped many of FDR’s most radical New Dealers. That
change boosted business confidence, and companies started to invest
again in America.

The typical Keynesian response mostly centers around dismissing the
immediate post-war boom as a one-off event complicated by many unique
factors. But it happened again, as Henderson notes! After the Cold War
ended, overall federal spending fell to 18% of GDP in 2000 from 22% in
1991. But again the economy boomed. Real U.S. GDP grew by 40% with an
average annual growth rate of 3.8%. Henderson speculates that perhaps
the decline in defense spending freed up knowledge workers to help make
technological miracles happen in the private economy.

Nobody's laughing now
God's grace lost and the devil is proud
But I've been walking for a thousand miles
One last time, I could see you smile

I hold on to you
You bring me hope, I'll see you soon
And if I don't see you
I'm afraid we've lost the way

Stay, beautiful baby
I hope you
Stay, American baby
American baby

By Andrew Klavan

In order to avoid throwing his money into the maw of an increasingly
oppressive and spendthrift government, Facebook co-founder and
about-to-be gazillionaire Eduardo Saverin hasrenounced his U.S. citizenship in favor of Singapore. To put an end to such sensible behavior,
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey have proposed a punitive
tax on any wealthy Americans who try to escape the clutches of
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey by leaving the country.

But I have a much better idea, a much simpler and more effective
idea. Why not just build a wall? Come on, this is a great, creative
approach! How could it not work? We build a wall around the country and
anyone trying to escape with his money or his brain power or his hard
work, we capture him and bring him back. Or shoot him, if we have to.

This wonderful solution to the Saverin problem is not just perfect
for the United States in general — it’d work in individual states as
well. Take California — please! As City Journal’s Steven Malanga reports, businesses are leaving the golden state in droves.

As California has transformed into a relentlessly
antibusiness state, [its] redeeming characteristics haven’t been enough
to keep firms from leaving. Relocation experts say that the number of
companies exiting the state for greener pastures has exploded. In
surveys, executives regularly call California one of the country’s most
toxic business environments and one of the least likely places to open
or expand a new company. Many firms still headquartered in California
have forsaken expansion there.

This shouldn’t be. Not when the answer is right there in front of us!
Just build a wall along the border of the state and anyone who tries to
get out gets the old bang-bang-you’re-dead treatment!

I mean, the Communists did this in Berlin, right? That worked well!
Did you think the reds just slapped that sucker up because they were
evil? Did you think they just did it for the joy of shooting their own
citizens? Of course not. The Communists were smart people, logical
people. They knew that when the state encroached on human freedom by
taking the fruit of people’s labor, by demanding power over people’s
productivity and creativity, those people would naturally, sensibly come
to understand that the contract between citizen and state had been
violated, and they’d take off. And you just can’t have a socialist state
if all the creativity and productivity and other people’s money leave.
So the Communists built a wall.

It made perfect sense.

And so we should build a wall! And keep job-and-wealth-creating
people like Eduardo Saverin from leaving! What other solution could
there possibly be? I mean, if smart guys like Senators Schumer and Casey
can’t think of one, I sure can’t.

So this is the country you made, President Obama — and in only three
short years too. So don’t you wait. Don’t hesitate. Don’t bother with
punitive taxes or big speeches or any of that stuff.

Mr. Obama, finish the job! Make this the America you want it to be.

Mr. Obama, build up that wall!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sophie:

"I will merely note that for some people, their citizenship is worth everything they have to give."

Nice words, but is that really true? Doesn’t your country owe you
something in return? Were Germans, who opposed the Nazis, wrong for
immigrating to the US and becoming citizens? Were Russians, who left
the Soviet Union, wrong for defecting, renouncing their citizenship and becoming Americans?

If
the Federal government decided to impose a 90%
income tax on everyone, would you still believe that your citizenship is
worth 9 out of every $10 you earn? Really? What else would you give
at that point? Your wife, if El Presidente demanded her? Your
firstborn son? Would you begin to kill your neighbours if your country
demanded that of you? Better yet, were the Founding Fathers wrong for
declaring their independence from England because of high taxation, taxation without representation, and the tyranny of King George III? Were they unpatriotic?

No, Saverin and people like him are renouncing their citizenship
because being an American doesn’t have the same value as it did as
little as a decade ago when I became one. The country has the most
progressive income tax system in the world; yet, the 50% of the
populace, who does not pay a dime in Federal income taxes, believes it is
entitled by right to the property of others. The dollar is on its way
to being as valuable as an old Reichsmark. The national debt will enslave generations.
Neither party is capable of or willing to address the real issues.

In addition to the most progressive income tax system, we also have
the highest corporate tax rate and are increasing dividend and capital
gain tax rates while expanding economies are cutting them. Further, the
bureaucratic tangle of red tape answers the question “Where are the
jobs?” They are overseas because the US government has created a
hostile environment to job and business creation. It isn’t at the stage of Greece —
where a stool sample is required of some people before they can obtain
an operating licence to start an internet business — but it is rapidly
following in the country’s footsteps.

The question shouldn’t be whether Saverin is a bad guy for
renouncing his American citizenship. The question should be "Why has the US decided that it
doesn’t want to keep people like Saverin and attract more of them?" Obviously, it doesn't want Saverins. If it did, it
would make itself competitive.

Senators Schumer and Casey, among others, claim that people like Saverin
are unpatriotic and they are probably correct, but how patriotic are
they? Is it patriotic to debaunch the currency of your country? Is it
patriotic to spend your country into bankruptcy? Is it patriotic -- and
moral -- to enslave future generations to unsustainable debt
obligations? Is it fair, patriotic, or moral to steal the futures of
generations yet unborn while taxing them without representation?

Would
Americans be unpatriotic if they wanted to insure that their children
were not enslaved by the debt and unfunded obligations of their
forebears by raising them as citizens of another country? Is that
really selfish? How much do your future children and grandchildren owe
the greedy, irresponsible people of today?

When I tell the Progressive Movement to "Fund
Your Utopia Without Me™", I mean it. If the Progs want to recreate the
French Revolution -- with or without the blood -- and they manage to be
successful, in whole or in part, why do I owe the country anything?
Why do you? Must we stay around and pay...and pay...and pay...and pay
to satiate the envious cravings and most base desires of humanity?

California
has 1/8th of the country's population, but 1/3rd of all of the
country's welfare recipients. Is it doing anything to attract new
business or relocations? No. It continues to pass higher taxes, fees,
and more regulation, while giving more to union workers and welfare
recipients. Businesses and the productive class are leaving. Why would
anyone think that this would not happen on a national scale should
Obama succeed in turning all of America into California?

Great civilisations do fall. Hopefully, the United States will not, but if it does, you do not have to go down with the ship.

BTW:
I can't wait to hear the hypocritical screeching from Senator John
Kerry, who parked his boat in another state to avoid paying
Massachusetts state taxes.

One last kiss, one only, then I let you goHeart for you, heart fallen, but you can't break my fallI'm broken, don't break me, when I hit the groundSome devil, some angel has got me to the bone

You said, always and foreverNow I believe you babyYou said, always and forever is such a long and lonely time

By Mickey Kaus

So it’s unanimous, then– Thomas Edsall was right: In
the aftermath of Obama’s gay marriage flip, pundits seem to have
concluded that Obama’s Democratic party has indeed given up on white
working class voters. They’ve been dropped from the winning coalition,
which is now composed of three main groups: “young people,
college-educated whites (especially women), and minorities,” according to Ron Brownstein. Bill Galstonagrees. Ruy Teixeira–who once wrote a book called America’s Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters–agrees. Here’s Teixeira on how Obama can win Arizona:

"First, the share of Hispanic voters must grow and their support level for Obama must increase …

Second, a projected 3 point decrease in the size of the total white vote should come entirely from white working class voters.
Based on recent data, this is a highly plausible assumption. Eligible
voter trends since 2008 are consistent with such an outcome and, in
2008, the decrease in the white vote (4 points) did in fact come
entirely from working class voters, according to the exit polls.

Finally, Obama’s performance among white
college graduates needs to improve …. Returning to [2000 and 2004]
earlier levels of white college graduate support will be crucial for
Obama. [E.A.]"

Hmm. Are there any other Dems out there who think basing the party on this New Coke Coalition is a really bad idea? Here’s alert kf reader Pollster Y:

For now, it’s not even an argument. This is the direction the smart people are taking the Democratic Party. Wheeeee! …

A college-educated whites plus blacks and
Hispanics coalition is not the cruise I signed up for—and for many
blacks and Hispanics, the door they came in was marked “for low- to
middle-income working folks of all races,” and they will understand
immediately that the old working class door is closed now and they are
just votes to support the ascendancy of a college-educated whites
agenda. Steerage class. …

[W]hich holds greater promise in the
Electoral College—winning more vote in Denver, Phoenix, Santa Fe,
Columbus, OH and the suburbs of Washington DC with a
college-whites+minorities focus, OR trying to win back the arc of votes
Obama lost to Hillary and has not won back, stretching from WVA, VA
south of the Northern Virginia suburbs, western NC, southwestern PA,
southern OH, southern IL, MO, Arkansas? And in the long run, which
Democratic Party is more likely to hold the loyalties of blacks and
Hispanics for another generation—a working class Democratic Party, or a
knowledge-worker Democratic Party?

Let me add a few other possible reasons to take Pollster Y’s doubts seriously:

1. Unskilled workers–men especially–are among those who’ve been most
harmed by the big structural changes of the past four decades (i.e.,
global trade that forces them to compete against cheap foreign workers,
technology that puts a premium on skills and smarts). Any political
party that doesn’t attempt to improve the economic position of these
people–who make up a lot of the “white working class”–simply isn’t addressing the problems of the times.

2. The increasing premium on skills and smarts promises to bring us an uglier society
in the form of a meritocracy where those who are rich can think not
only that they’re richer but that they’re better. That doesn’t simply
threaten the incomes of the unskilled. It corrodes the traditional
American idea of social equality–the idea that we’re “equal in the eyes
of each other.” Cheering on young professionals–while urging the
non-professionals to hurry up and do some learnin’–doesn’t make the
problem better. It makes the problem worse. Even if it increases GDP.

3. Weren’t Democrats supposed to be the party of Everyman? If you
went to work and obeyed the rules, Dems would “make work pay”–plus give
you unemployment compensation and Social Security and medical care in
old age. White male workers are sort of the indivisible denominator in
American politics–they have no special economic leverage, and no race-
or gender-based claim to special privileges. They’re naked as far as favoritism goes, and thus (not unlike Marx’s proleteriat) are the representatives of universal privileges (such as Social Security).
The new Obama coalition threatens to abandon this universality,
becoming instead the party of non-universal skills, ethnic and gender
identities–of special pleaders, victims and causists. Not of citizens.

P.S.: But isn’t this just a question of strategy or
political marketing? No. Different coalitions produce different
policies–or, rather, the attempt to mobilize different coalitions
produces different policies. (Sorry,Weigel.**)
Gay marriage is a New Coalition policy: Young voters love it; white
working class voters, not so much. “Comprehensive immigration
reform”–e.g. legalization or amnesty– is a New Coalition policy: It is
quite explicitly framed as an attempt to win over Latinos. But if it
attracts additional unskilled illegal immigrants, from Mexico and
elsewhere, unskilled working class Americans are the ones who will see
their wages bid down even further. Screw ‘em–they vote Republican
anyway!

Similarly, if you don’t care that much about ordinary white unskilled
workers you might be perfectly willing to raise the Medicare
eligibility age from 65 to 67, as Obama has apparently been willing to
do. After all, it”s not such a big deal to retire two years later if you
are an accountant. But what if you are a coal miner? The worst example
of all would be Obama policies that push poorer workers out of Medicare
into often-inferior Medicaid, as Scott Gottlieb has charged the Affordable Care Act will do. (I await Jonathan Cohn’s explanation of why Obamacare doesn’t actually do this).

You can’t blame Obama for trying to win, and if white working class
voters don’t like him–well, he has to assemble a majority anyway he
can.*** But if you’re not Obama you can hope this particular Emerging
Democratic Majority un-emerges soon.

_____

**–Back in November, Slate‘s Dave Weigelassured his readersthat
“Obama isn’t switching policies in or out of a playbook because whites
won’t vote for him.” Tell it to opponents of gay marriage.

***–You can blame Obama for not doing things that might have
made white working class voters dislike him a lot less–doing a better
job of selling Obamacare, for example. A big initiative to get the fat out of the federal bureaucracy might
have done for him what welfare reform did for Bill Clinton. (For that
matter, welfare reform might have done for him what welfare reform did
for Bill Clinton–specifically, backing up work requirements with
Wisconsin-style last-resort “workfare” jobs.)